Decline in minority enrollment alarms Florida's law schools

Law schools in Florida have struggled for years to draw more minorities into legal fields long dominated by white men.

Yet despite recruitment drives and other efforts to boost their enrollment, the numbers at some colleges have remained stagnant or have fallen off.

That troubles scholars and college administrators as Florida becomes more and more diverse.

Soaring tuition, tougher admission requirements and other factors have discouraged many minorities from seeking law degrees.

At the University of Florida, black enrollment at the state's largest public law school dropped 10 percent from fall 2006 to fall 2010, the national Law School Admission Council reported last week. The overall number of full-time minority students studying law dipped as well.

Meanwhile, Hispanic enrollment fell by more than one-third at Florida A&M University's law school in Orlando from 2008 to 2010. And even though black student enrollment remained about the same at Florida A&M, which has served mostly black students for decades, a smaller percentage of the law school's student body is now black.

Scholars say more minorities need to study law at a time when many are pursuing careers in health sciences and business.

There's a growing demand for minority attorneys, as many members of the public seek lawyers in criminal and civil cases who look like them and can relate to them through cultural backgrounds and life experiences.

In addition, law firms want to diversify so they can better compete globally and build trial teams that can make effective cases before racially diverse juries.

A fairness issue

Robert Jerry, dean of UF's law school, worries that trust in the criminal-justice system among minorities will further erode as the growing population of blacks and Hispanics questions the effectiveness and fairness of a legal system headed primarily by white judges and lawyers.

More than 85 percent of the judges in Florida's county, circuit, district and Supreme court systems are white, state records show. Meanwhile, 16 percent of Florida residents are black and 23 percent are Hispanic, according to U.S. census data from 2010.

"If the legal profession does not appear to be broadly representative of our nation's population, then I'm concerned people will lose confidence in how the justice system is administered," Jerry said. "And if that happens, the very fabric of our democracy could be in peril."

UF officials blamed their enrollment losses partly on budgetary constraints. In 2009, the university had to cut the total number of students it could accept into the law program.

Members of Congress were so concerned by a national decline in black students several years ago that they ordered an investigation of the issue through the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

The agency issued a report in late 2009 that partly blamed the fact that blacks and Hispanics are generally less likely to go to college. They also tend to have lower undergraduate grade-point averages and scores on the Law School Admission Test — key factors for law-school admission.

The report doesn't address the elimination of affirmative-action programs in some states, including Florida, although some critics argue those changes have hurt law-school diversity.

Law schools are reluctant to take students with lower scores on the LSAT, largely because the scores are used to rate colleges in the all-important annual U.S. News and World Report rankings.

'A struggle'

The LSAT tripped up Nate King, a third-year law student at Florida A&M. He took the test three times. All three times, his score fell below the national median, which meant his opportunities were limited.

Only two of the 13 law schools he applied to wanted him.

"It was a struggle for me, and I've been a strong student forever," said King, 28, who graduated from high school a year early, earned a full academic scholarship to the University of Rochester in New York and then graduated from college with a 3.0 grade-point average. "If you can learn a test, in America you can do anything."

Even law-school applicants with top scores face challenges. Rising tuition and cuts in some types of financial aid, for example, can especially hurt minorities, who are more likely to have lower incomes.

Those discouraging factors are compounded by a softer job market for attorneys. A smaller percentage of law students are reporting having a job for which passing the bar is required — 68 percent of the class of 2010 compared with 75 percent of the class of 2008, according to a study released a few months ago by the National Association for Law Placement inWashington.

And a report released last year — The American Lawyer magazine's 2010 Diversity ScoreCard — showed that minority attorneys were disproportionately hurt by layoffs in legal fields in 2008 and 2009.

Though black students and Hispanic students aren't flocking to law schools, they are enrolling in graduate programs in much higher rates.

Black student enrollment in graduate-level health-sciences programs jumped 20 percent a year on average from 1999 to 2009, and the increase was 13 percent a year among Hispanic students, according to the national Council of Graduate Schools.

Black-student enrollment in business programs surged 18 percent a year on average during that period.

Officials at Florida A&M's law school are expecting Hispanic enrollment to grow next school year. This year, they received 308 applications from Hispanics compared with 73 last year, said the college's dean, LeRoy Pernell.

Black-student enrollment could suffer, however. It's too soon to say for sure, but, as of last month, the college had received 727 applications from black students for the coming school year — down from 785 last year.